Not sure that this thought from yesterday was in any way original for me, but it felt newly minted. And here it comes: Joyce represents three entirely distinct modes of consciousness for the key characters in Ulysses, yet they are all versions of himself - Poldy, Stephen and Molly. (Yes, I know Molly is Nora, but Jim inhabits his long-suffering Wife & Muse.)
How did he do it? Genius, yes, but a kind of absolute honesty about the nature of the self helped.
I can't aspire to that. But I can offer a rapidly written list of modes of thought - knocked off in ten minutes - that seem to me so individual as to hardly overlap. And here it comes: relaxed day dreaming of the wish fulfilment variety; sexual fantasizing; figuring out a schedule when impossibly busy; reading fiction and responding; reading non-fiction and responding; listening to poetry that works; listening to poetry that doesn't work; remembering stuff that happened in childhood; listening to a friend; listening to criticism of oneself; listening to something you're not listening to.
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